Spain's Answer to Aznar

Updated May 27, 2003 12:01 a.m. ET

Jose Maria Aznar can feel vindicated this week. Socialists nearly plunged Spain into mass hysteria in the run-up to Sunday's local elections, subjecting the prime minister and his Partido Popular to a campaign of vilification for supporting the liberation of Iraq. Spain's civil order was threatened in a manner hardly seen since the 1930s, and it became a usual occurrence for rock-throwing mobs screaming "asesinos!" to break up PP rallies. And it was all for less than nothing.